Introduction
This page contains instructions for using OpenVPN project's own software repositories. For OpenVPN 3 Linux, see the dedicated OpenVPN 3 Linux page.
The OpenVPN project provides the latest OpenVPN releases (and development snapshots) as packages for major Linux distributions. This allow you to use more up-to-date version of OpenVPN than what is typically available in your distribution's repositories.
Note that this is mostly interesting for users of distribution releases with long release cycles (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu LTS, RHEL). Distributions with rolling releases (e.g. Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed) or half-year release cycles (e.g. Fedora, Ubuntu) should usually provide reasonably recent versions of OpenVPN.
There are various repositories available depending on your distribution and the desired version of OpenVPN:
- OpenVPN Community APT Repositories -- Provides Stable and Testing releases for Debian/Ubuntu
- OpenVPN Community Fedora Copr Repositories -- Provides Stable, Testing, and Snapshot releases for Fedora/RHEL
- OpenVPN Community openSUSE Buildservice Repositories -- Provides Testing and Snapshot releases for openSUSE/SLES and Debian/Ubuntu
Repository HOWTOs
Fedora / RHEL: Using Fedora Copr
CentOS/RHEL users: Ensure you have the yum-plugin-copr package installed (can be installed via yum).
Then run these commands:
# yum copr enable @OpenVPN/openvpn-release-2.6 # for OpenVPN 2.6 releases # yum copr enable @OpenVPN/openvpn-beta # for OpenVPN Alpha and Beta releases # yum copr enable @OpenVPN/openvpn-git # for OpenVPN Snapshot releases ... # yum install openvpn
The @OpenVPN/openvpn-release-2.6 Copr repository currently contains the latest stable OpenVPN release. Note that this repository only contains builds for RHEL (via the EPEL repositories). Fedora releases already contain the latest OpenVPN release.
To test OpenVPN beta releases, the @OpenVPN/openvpn-beta Copr repository contains builds. This contains builds for all supported Fedora and RHEL releases so you can test on top of whatever release you're using.
There are also nightly builds of the master branch available in @OpenVPN/openvpn-git Copr repository. Testing welcome but not intended for production use!
If you have OpenVPN already installed, it will be upgraded to the latest available version.
OpenVPN kernel module (DCO)
OpenVPN releases since 2.6 have support for delegating the actual VPN connection to the Kernel for a significant speed-up (this feature is also called "Data Channel Offload" or DCO). You need to install an additional kernel module to use this feature. Note that the module and the related package changed their names between OpenVPN 2.6 and OpenVPN 2.7 since the kernel module underwent massive changes. You can install both modules side-by-side.
# yum install kmod-ovpn-dco # Install OpenVPN kernel module for OpenVPN 2.6 releases # yum install kmod-ovpn # Install OpenVPN kernel module for OpenVPN 2.7+ releases
Debian / Ubuntu: Using OpenVPN apt repositories
We maintain several OpenVPN software repositories. To setup the repositories you need to change to the root user. Typically this is done using sudo:
$ sudo -s
Then import the public GPG key that is used to sign the packages:
# mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings # directory does not exist on older releases # curl -fsSL https://swupdate.openvpn.net/repos/repo-public.gpg | tee /etc/apt/keyrings/openvpn-repo-public.asc
Next you need to create a sources.list fragment (as root) so that apt can find the new OpenVPN packages. One way to do it is this:
# echo "deb [arch=<arch> signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/openvpn-repo-public.asc] https://build.openvpn.net/debian/openvpn/<version> <osrelease> main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openvpn-aptrepo.list
Where <arch> can be one of
- amd64
- arm64
Where <version> can be one of
- stable: stable releases only - no alphas, betas or RCs
- testing: latest releases, including alphas/betas/RCs
- release/2.3: OpenVPN 2.3 releases
- release/2.4: OpenVPN 2.4 releases, including alphas/betas/RCs
- release/2.5: OpenVPN 2.5 releases, including alphas/betas/RCs
- release/2.6: OpenVPN 2.6 releases, including alphas/betas/RCs
and <osrelease> depends your distribution:
- buster (Debian 10.x)
- bullseye (Debian 11.x)
- bookworm (Debian 12.x)
- focal (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS)
- jammy (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)
- noble (Ubuntu 24.04 LTS)
- oracular (Ubuntu 24.10)
This list may be incomplete. Please check the [http://build.openvpn.net/debian/openvpn/release/ repository web page] for the complete list of releases.
Examples:
# Always get the latest package, even Beta versions # echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/openvpn-repo-public.asc] http://build.openvpn.net/debian/openvpn/testing jammy main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openvpn-aptrepo.list # Only get a specific version, do not upgrade to newer major version automatically # echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/openvpn-repo-public.asc] http://build.openvpn.net/debian/openvpn/release/2.6 bullseye main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openvpn-aptrepo.list
Now you're set for installing OpenVPN.
$ apt-get update && apt-get install openvpn
OpenVPN kernel module (DCO)
OpenVPN releases since 2.6 have support for delegating the actual VPN connection to the Kernel for a significant speed-up (this feature is also called "Data Channel Offload" or DCO). You need to install an additional kernel module to use this feature. Note that the module and the related package changed their names between OpenVPN 2.6 and OpenVPN 2.7 since the kernel module underwent massive changes. You can install both modules side-by-side.
$ apt-get install openvpn-dco-dkms # Install DCO kernel module for 2.6 versions $ apt-get install ovpn-dkms # Install DCO kernel module for 2.7+ versions
Notes on expired keys
If the apt signing key expires, apt will complain when refreshing the package cache (e.g. apt-get update). In that case just download the key again as described above.
Debian/Ubuntu: Using openSUSE Buildservice for master snapshot packages
Snapshot packages built from the latest source code for Debian/Ubuntu are managed in different repositories since we use the openSUSE Buildservice to build them.
You can find a list of supported Debian/Ubuntu Distributions on the Download page. Use them as follows (example for Ubuntu 24.04):
$ sudo -s # mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings # directory does not exist on older releases # curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:/OpenVPN:/Snapshots/xUbuntu_24.04/Release.key | tee /etc/apt/keyrings/obs-isv-openvpn-snapshots.asc # echo "deb [arch=<arch> signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/obs-isv-openvpn-snapshots.asc] https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:/OpenVPN:/Snapshots/xUbuntu_24.04 ./" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/obs-isv-openvpn-snapshots.list
For more information on package names and installation see above.
openSUSE/SLES: Using openSUSE Buildservice
Alpha/Beta releases and snapshot packages built from the latest source code are provided by the Community for openSUSE/SLES. The official repositories for the rolling distributions (openSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll/Factory) should have the latest stable OpenVPN available.
To install the packages go to the Beta Download page or Snapshots Download page and choose your distribution. Use them as follows (example for openSUSE Tumbleweed):
# For Alpha/Beta releases: # zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:/OpenVPN:/Beta/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/isv:OpenVPN:Beta.repo # For snapshot packages: # zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:/OpenVPN:/Snapshots/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/isv:OpenVPN:Snapshots.repo # zypper install openvpn # zypper install ovpn-kmp-default # pre-compiled DCO kernel module